Crescent Growth Capital, LLC
Structuring project financing to incorporate tax credit equity.
New Orleans-based Ryan Gootee General Contractors received the Alliant Build America Award from the Associated General Contractors of America for their redevelopment of the former Myrtle Banks Elementary School building.
Follow this link to read the more about the award and Ryan Gootee’s work at Myrtle Banks.
On Wednesday, a groundbreaking ceremony marked the beginning of the 12-month construction of the new NOCCA Forum.
The Times-Picayune, February 8, 2011
In the next 60 days, contractors for St. Margaret’s Daughters, a Catholic church-affiliated nonprofit health-care provider, are scheduled to begin limited demolition work as part of the redevelopment of the old Lindy Boggs Medical Center in Mid-City.
The first phase of the redevelopment is a nursing facility projected to open in the summer of 2012, several months later than the target announced in April 2010 when St. Margaret’s bought the property on the corner of Bienville Street and North Jefferson Davis Parkway.
Jason Hemel, St. Margaret’s vice president for development, confirmed that his organization is in talks with a hospital operator about the yet-undetailed second phase: a small hospital. Addressing the Mid-City Neighborhood Organization this week, Hemel did not disclose the potential operator or the specifics of what kind of hospital or surgical center St. Margaret’s has in mind. He referred mostly to a “specialty hospital” and mentioned “30 to 50 beds,” but he did not explicitly rule out the possibility of a full-service hospital.
It is questionable how a full-service hospital in Mid-City would fit into a hospital market where existing hospitals like Tulane Medical Center and Touro Infirmary, to say nothing of the hundreds of additional beds that would come online with the completion of the planned University Medical Center and an eastern New Orleans hospital on the old Methodist Hospital campus.
Specialty hospitals that target customers for specific, often out-patient procedures – orthopedics, heart catheterizations – are increasingly commonplace in the U.S. health care system.
“In about six to eight months, we should have some more things to announce,” Hemel said.
St. Margaret’s executives have said that the end product would include physician offices, clinic spaces, rehabilitation services and a small surgical hospital, a complex modeled after the organization’s St. Luke’s Medical Center and St. Luke’s Living Center that opened last year in Algiers.
Hemel said St. Margaret’s also is considering a wellness center and is in discussions with a day-care provider for a facility that could serve employees and surrounding community members. “We don’t know exactly what it’s going to look like,” he said.
The demolition work will take about 45 to 60 days as architects finish the final plans for the new nursing home facilities will occupy about 100,000 square feet of what had been medical office buildings at Lindy Boggs. The entire complex is about 300,000 square feet.
Though plans are not final, Hemel said the concept envisions apartment-style rooms clustered in “neighborhoods,” rather than traditional long hallways with single and double rooms on each side. Plans call for 12 neighborhoods each with nine rooms. Each room will have its own kitchen, laundry and dining area.
“We’re trying to make it much more like being in your own home,” Hemel said, adding that St. Margaret’s executives have traveled extensively to see the same model in other cities.
The Lindy Boggs Medical Center, run by for-profit Tenet Healthcare Corp., suffered extensive flood damage from Hurricane Katrina and its levee breaches. The hospital never reopened after the flood.
Tenet sold the property to Victory Real Estate Investments, a Georgia firm that amassed several Mid-City properties with the intention of developing a Bienville retail corridor. That idea never materialized. Public records show that St. Margaret’s acquired the Lindy Boggs complex for $4.2 million.
St. Margaret’s Daughters, constituted in 1889, has been providing institutional health care since it opened a facility in the Holy Cross neighborhood in 1931. The agency’s Lower 9th Ward nursing home flooded during Katrina and has since reopened at 3419 St. Claude Avenue.
The Times-Picayune, October 4, 2010
In an effort to modernize the way it teaches its very youngest students, Ursuline Academy has recently revamped its early childhood program, investing $3 million in a new classroom building and adopting a student-inspired curriculum, a significant change for a Catholic school steeped in almost three centuries of tradition.
The new center, named after former elementary school principal Sister Teresita Rivet, is housed in what was once a laundry used by Ursuline nuns who lived on the State Street campus.
The 4,500-square-foot building has largely retained its historic facade, but inside, it has been renovated into a large studio space with a trendy warehouse feel, equipped with learning centers, smart boards and lots of colorful toys that help children learn motor skills.
School staff began working to restore the flood-damaged building about three years ago. Before then, the two-story building, built in 1911 and listed in the National Register of Historic Places, had mainly been used for storage.
With the facility now nearly complete, 66 students — ages 2 to 5 — cycle between learning centers for art, music, reading and math, and more traditional classroom setups for religion and library time. Nine teachers work in the center. Tuition and fees are about $8,000 a year.
In every part of the center, technology plays an important role. Touch-sensitive tables — which work like huge iPads — teach the girls the alphabet and let them “paint.” Smart boards replace black boards.
The facility was designed by Concordia Architects, a local firm that has designed school facilities across the country and provided the master plan for the Louisiana Children’s Museum.
In addition to providing a first-rate facility, teachers fanned out across the country looking for the right educational model to adopt.
They decided on the Reggio Emilia approach, an Italian style of teaching developed in the 1940s that focuses on a student-inspired curriculum rather than a teacher-driven agenda.
“Previously, teachers taught as if children were little vessels to be filled up with knowledge,” said Kim Harper, Ursuline’s elementary school principal. “Now, teachers view children as capable of constructing their own learning, and lessons are developed from the children’s need to know and their own natural curiosity.”
The Reggio approach has a handful of basic hallmarks that set it apart from more traditional learning methods. Children should have a say in what and how they learn; they should interact with the subject matter being taught; relationships with other children are promoted; and each child should be free to express his or her individuality.
For example, some of the students recently wanted to play store — so the teachers helped them set up a market and began teaching about commerce. They plan to take the students to the Uptown Crescent City Farmer’s Market, and to eventually help them sell items they’ve grown in the school’s garden.
Becky McLellan enrolled her 4-year-old, Cecilia, at Ursuline because of the new Reggio-inspired program. She said it has already had a positive effect on her daughter.
“Every day she learns in some different, wonderful way,” she said. “This has boosted her confidence.”
Judith Kieff, acting chairwoman of department of curriculum and instruction at the University of New Orleans, said a Reggio program, like the one Ursuline is using, can produce a more inspired student. The girls’ market is a good example.
“They’re not looking to the teacher to tell them what they should know,” Kieff said. “The world becomes their teacher.”
Kieff plans to send UNO education students to Ursuline to use the center as a laboratory for their own training.
For Ursuline’s early childhood coordinator Belinda Baker, the building and program represent a philosophy she’s held during nearly 30 years in education.
“I’ve always believed children should be free to express themselves,” she said.
San Antonio Business Journal – April 14, 2010
City and civic leaders have officially dedicated the new $100 million Haven for Hope campus in San Antonio.
After three years of construction, the 37-acre, 280,000-square-foot homeless facility is finally completed. Homeless individuals and families will start moving in later this month.
“Haven for Hope is a window on the soul of San Antonio,” says San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro. “It reflects our city’s strong sense of compassion and a belief in the power of an individual to transform himself or herself.”
Haven for Hope Chairman Bill Greehey praised the partnerships involved in making the campus a reality.
“This is one of the biggest public-private partnerships in San Antonio’s history, and it would not have been possible without the dedication, commitment and investment of countless individuals in both the public and private sectors,” Greehey says. “We are so grateful to the City of San Antonio, Bexar County and the State of Texas for dedicating funding, resources and other support. And we have been overwhelmed by the generosity of the hundreds of private donors who have helped us raise over $58 million, which puts us within $2 million of our fund-raising goal.”
SAMMinistries, one of the social service partners involved with Haven to Hope, will begin moving single men from its shelters onto the campus. About 10 men will move in each day for the first two weeks and then the numbers will ramp up after that. Women and families from other SAMMinistries shelters will begin moving onto the campus in early June. The entire campus is expected to be completely open to the public by mid-June.
“This is so important because we can’t solve the homeless crisis without everybody working together, and Haven for Hope is proof of the great things that can happen when the government and private sector work together toward a common goal,” Greehey says. “Together, we’re not just going to transform lives, we’re going to save lives.”